Summer Belongs To Us
by lolday-n-lolnight
Summary: Lawrence Fletcher has no idea how to interact with his brilliant but reclusive son. Maybe he'll make friends with the son of his date, Linda Flynn? Though Phineas and Ferb seem to be about as different as two boys can be...


A/N: Non-canon ages, because I forgot about _Across the Second Dimension_ until I was too far along to want to change it. Enjoy!

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Normally Lawrence Fletcher would whistle something jaunty as he got dressed for a date, but tonight he was far too much of a nervous wreck to keep a tune. He'd finally settled on his least faded pair of blue bell bottoms, but now deciding on a shirt was giving him an ulcer. Purple with frills? Simple button down? Maybe something with layers? He'd never have guessed that a casual concert date would be harder to dress for than dinner at a fancy restaurant.

The doorbell rang. With only a moment's hesitation, Lawrence grabbed a red shirt and pulled it on, buttoning it as he took the stairs two at a time. Could it really be Linda already? He hadn't even started on his hair!

He threw open the front door, but rather than the beautiful redhead he'd met three weeks ago at an Antiquers' Association mingle standing there, he was met with a plump, gray-haired matron, an older neighbor from across street he'd asked to babysit tonight. "Good evening, Mrs. McPherson," he said politely, holding the door open.

"And good evening to you!" She smiled broadly at him, stretching the crow's feet around her eyes even further. "My, but you're looking fine, Mr. Fletcher. Though you seem to have missed a button."

Lawrence looked down. Sure enough, he'd skipped a button on his shirt, forming a strange lump in the middle of his chest and causing the ends to hang unevenly. He smiled nervously and started fixing it.

Mrs. McPherson peered around short-sightedly as she shuffled toward the dining room. "Where's that boy of yours – Fern, is it?"

"Ferb," Lawrence corrected her. "He's upstairs. I'm sure he won't be any trouble. He's not really one for company."

"Oh pish posh," she retorted, waving an arthritic hand dismissively. "Bring him down here and we can play a rousing game of dominoes. It'll be exciting!" She paused at the sofa about halfway to the dining room, leaning against the arm and wheezing.

"I'm sure he'll be thrilled," Lawrence said drily, climbing the stairs. He started for the bathroom – his hair looked positively dreadful without any mousse in it – but he paused at the door of his son's bedroom. Even through the thick oak door, the sweetly melancholic sound of an acoustic guitar could be heard – interspersed with the occasional jolt of a misfingered chord. Lawrence knocked on the door. "Ferb? Can I come in?"

No reply, but the music stopped. After about thirty seconds the knob turned and the door opened with a slight pop. Lawrence pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped in.

Though they'd been living in America for almost a year, Ferb's room was still almost as bare as the day they'd moved in. On one side of the room was Ferb's bed, the green covers meticulously tucked away in such a way to make Lawrence worry how much sleep his son was getting. On the other side of the room was a white desk with a short, fat lamp sitting on it. Only in the back of the room, spilling out of the walk-in closet, was any sign that a child inhabited this room – books, action figures, Legos, a partially-deflated football (or soccer ball, as Lawrence's American colleagues would correct him). But all those things were stuffed in brown moving boxes and shoved out of sight.

Ferb was sitting in a white wooden chair in the middle of the room, a rickety old music stand in front of him and his child-sized guitar, a recent birthday present from his paternal grandparents, held aloofly in his lap. His green hair was neatly parted and combed. He wore a pair of somewhat high-waisted navy slacks and a white button-down shirt, carefully ironed and pressed.

He stared at his father but didn't say anything.

As usual.

Lawrence walked around the music stand and put a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder. "That guitar's really starting to sound good!" To his surprise, rather than the _Kid's Guide to Starting Guitar_ that had accompanied the gift, the music stand was full of loose sheets of paper half-written on with Ferb's characteristically neat and tiny handwriting. "Writing your own song already?" Lawrence yelped. Ferb simply nodded.

Inwardly he sighed. His son was a genius and he was just... Lawrence Fletcher. Aspiring antique dealer and single dad. He was sure the move from England had contributed to the boy's reclusiveness, and his British accent and uptight style – a holdover from his mother's posh background – surely made him a prime target for bullies. But Lawrence had needed to escape the petty infighting and family drama that had erupted into full-blown harassment and legal battles when he and his wife divorced, so he'd leapt across the pond to help out with his great-uncle's ailing antique shop at the first whiff of a job. And it wasn't like Ferb hadn't been given a choice: stay in England with his mother's family (though he'd certainly be sent off to a boarding school), or travel to Danville with his father. Lawrence was initially delighted that Ferb had chosen to stay with him, but over the past year as it became more and more obvious just how _different _Ferb was from his similarly-aged peers, Lawrence had started to doubt himself. Maybe the boy would be better off at a fancy private school that could cater to his gifts...?

The doorbell rang again, snapping Lawrence back to the present like a rubber band. "That'll be Linda and her kids," he said to Ferb, cheerfully emphasizing the second part. "One of them is a boy your age."

Ferb blinked, but his expression remained unchanged.

Lawrence squeezed his shoulder. "Won't you come downstairs and say hi?"

The boy looked back at his music stand and hefted his guitar into position. "No thanks," he said quietly, barely audible as he returned to plucking chords.

Lawrence opened his mouth to argue, but the doorbell rang again, more impatiently. Without thinking he bounded across the room but stopped at the doorway and looked back guiltily. "If you're feeling up to it later, then... well... try to make friends," he finished lamely.

Ferb nodded without looking up.

Ferb briefly registered that his father had forgotten to close his bedroom door all the way – _again_ – before he turned back to his notes and let himself get lost in their inky paths. He could hear the melody in his head – an upbeat little tune that without warning shifted into melancholy minor chords before finishing in an uplifting key change. He'd long heard and retooled the song in his head, but only recently had his skills in reading and writing music progressed to the point where he could begin putting it to paper.

As he played through what he'd written – gingerly, pausing at each awkward finger transition – he let his mind wander. The nameless song always reminded him of England, which reminded him of his maternal grandparents' house, where children shyly oversaw adults cruelly tormenting each other. Here in America, and in particular at the school playground that was the focal point of Ferb's social interaction, the roles were reversed – though he couldn't help but think his schoolteachers were much more apathetic towards the cruelty happening in front of them than Ferb and his cousins were in that mansion on the moor.

So focused on his work was Ferb that he missed the patter of hasty footsteps down the stairs, the multi-tonal murmuring of conversation, the fading rumble of his father's old clanker of a car as it pulled out of the driveway. He didn't even notice when, about ten minutes later, a large, rather pointed nose appeared through the crack in his doorway – at least until the face it was attached to gasped.

Ferb looked up with a start. A red-haired boy about his age was peeking out from the other side of the door, looking possibly awestruck, or mischievous, or some strange mixture of the two. His eyes were wide and shiny, almost shocked-looking, but his lips were curled up at the ends into a small smile. He didn't flinch from Ferb's piercing gaze, so the two stared at each other, frozen, for almost a minute.

"Hi!" the strange boy finally said without prompting. "You must be Ferb."

Ferb didn't say anything.

"I'm Phineas," he continued, pushing through the silence before it could settle too heavily. "I heard your guitar playing in the hallway. Sorry for spying on you." He chuckled sheepishly. "Mind if I come in?"

Ferb shrugged as if to say _suit yourself _and looked back down at his music. He'd made a dark smudge with his pencil when he was surprised by Phineas, and with the unnecessary introductions now out of the way he picked up his pencil and carefully erased it. Obviously the boy was his father's date's son, and just as obviously he was of no relevance to Ferb. Still he couldn't help but watch the pointy-nosed intruder out of the corner of his eye as he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with a click. Phineas was skinnier than Ferb had initially thought, one might almost say scrawny, and his orange-and-white striped shirt and jean shorts looked to be about half a size too big. He stood pigeon-toed but not self-consciously, looking around the nearly bare room with the same small smile he had held Ferb's gaze with.

Ferb shifted the guitar in his lap and leaned into the music stand, busying himself with some minutia of note-taking. He wouldn't want to admit it but he felt awfully self-conscious as Phineas' eyes flickered from the bed to the desk to Ferb and back around again.

A loud thud startled Ferb into turning around in his chair. His football bounced across the room, fallen from its precarious perch at the top of a pile of uneven cardboard boxes and milk crates full of toys and books. The ball didn't stop until it hit Phineas' shins, but his attention was focused on its origin, the closet – door now flung open – filled to bursting at the back of the room. "Is that all your stuff in there?" he asked.

Ferb only blinked. But instead of squirming under his gaze or coughing awkwardly to fill the silence, Phineas nodded as if responding to a verbal reply. "That's a Captain Petard action figure from _Space Adventure III_ in the top box, isn't it?" he pointed out. "Can I play with it?" Ferb shrugged and the red-headed boy's face nearly split in two from the giant smile on his face. "Awesome! You're the best, Ferb!" he squeaked in excitement.

Ferb coughed and strummed the tricky chord he'd been working on before the long interruption. He could feel the corners of his mouth turn upward slightly, despite himself.

For the next half hour or so the quiet boy tried to focus on his music, listening carefully to how the song evolved from chord to chord. But his muse had fled – the song in his mind sounded more and more faintly. Instead he found himself unwittingly listening in to the other boy's self ruminations.

"Captain Petard and Stumbleberry Finkbat in the same crate? Yeah right! Although... hmm... maybe they would be friends..."

"What's this? 'Fun Math'? Sweet! Oh wait, it's 'Fundamentals of Mathematics.' Well, math is already fun."

"Huh, is this some kind of diagram? Oh, these must be blueprints. Wow, a car engine. Cool!"

Phineas' exclamation pulled Ferb out of his funk with a start. His ears burned in embarrassment – he'd forgotten he'd stuffed those back in the closet rather than carefully replacing them in the false drawer in his desk. He dumped rather than placed the guitar on its case in his haste, hoping to reach Phineas before he could finish flipping through the carefully plotted diagrams.

But it was too late – just as Ferb reached him Phineas unrolled the last blueprint, the one not meant for anyone else's eyes (especially not rude, loud intruders). He barked out at a laugh that reminded Ferb of his tormenters at school, colder and meaner than before. "'A device for making two people fall in love again'?" he read, grinning at Ferb's increasingly red face. "Don't tell me – crush turned you down?"

"No," Ferb hissed through clenched teeth.

"Oh really?" Phineas turned back to the blueprint and his eyes lit up with devious glee. "It couldn't be – for Mommy and Daddy? Really?" He laughed even louder than before. "Pathetic."

That was enough. "DROP IT!" Ferb screamed, his hands balled up in fists. He'd never felt so angry in all his young life. For a moment he considered throwing a punch at Phineas, but instead he only glared eye-to-eye with the other boy, shaking impotently.

They stood like that for nearly a minute, and then to Ferb's surprise Phineas rolled the blueprints back up, stuck them in the plastic tube they'd been stored in, and dropped it on the floor. Almost before it landed Ferb was lunging for the precious keepsake, but he was stopped abruptly when Phineas grabbed his arm. "Wait," he said, pointing to his eye.

Ferb wriggled out of his grasp and stared at him, uncomprehending.

"C'mon, do it," Phineas goaded him. He grabbed his hand and, holding Ferb's fingers lightly down in a vague semblance of a fist, waved it in front of his face. "I deserve it," he explained, with just a hint of a smile. "I was being a big jerk."

Ferb looked from Phineas down to his curled-up fingers. He was still angry – angry that Phineas had found his secret blueprints, angry that he'd laughed, angry at himself for not having the words to tell off Phineas for exactly everything he'd done. Ferb was no good at words. There was a reason why his musical dabbling was devoid of lyrics, why he preferred to communicate with stares and blinks and shrugs.

Without warning he swung his fist as hard as he could at the other boy. It connected with a light _paff_ just under Phineas' left eye, and he staggered back in an exaggerated fashion. Ferb ignored his awkward chuckling and grabbed the plastic tube.

"If I found that thing in real life, I'd probably smash it," Ferb heard Phineas say just as he finished stowing the blueprints in their original hiding spot in the desk. He turned to face the red-headed boy, sitting on an overturned milk crate and staring up at the ceiling intently as he spoke. "My dad was a huge jerk. That's what everyone says anyway – Mom, Gramma and Grampa, Mom's friends. I've never even met him."

Ferb shuffled over to his chair and sat down gingerly, unsure what the strange boy would say or do next.

Phineas' gaze shifted, briefly landing on Ferb before affixing to a fascinating spot on the floor. He chuckled. "Seven years of birthdays and holidays, and nothing so much as a 'how's it going?'. As far as I'm concerned he doesn't exist." Phineas' eyes blazed, and his speech came out faster and faster. "Me, Mom, and Candace make a _great_ family without him, and the last thing I'd want is for some weirdo with a crazy invention to mess it up!"

For several minutes they sat there, Phineas' breath coming out in audible puffs like an enraged bull, and Ferb outwardly serene but inwardly tense and jumpy. Finally Phineas' shoulders relaxed, his eyelids drooped, and he sighed. He looked at Ferb for the first time since the incident with the blueprints, smiling with only half of his face. "But I guess your mom wasn't like that, huh?"

And just like that the memory burst in the front of Ferb's mind unbidden, fresh as the day it had happened. Back in England Father had worked late nearly every night, avoiding his prowling wife who snapped angrily at the timid maid unlucky enough to be in her employment. Eventually Mother took to dressing up and going out on evenings when Father called in late, returning later and later each night. She never noticed her son, hidden at the top of the stairs, who quietly watched as her nightly entourage dwindled over the weeks to one man, taller and younger than Father, who kissed her neck when he thought no one was watching.

That night she'd hummed and smiled to herself as she fussed with her hair, getting ready for yet another evening out on the town. She claimed she was going out with some girlfriends when Ferb asked, even though she was wearing the backless blue dress that sparkled under the bright bathroom lights and dousing herself in sweet-smelling expensive perfume.

As soon as Ferb had finished the blueprint he'd hurried to the bathroom, tugging wordlessly at his mother's dress until finally she looked down at the diagram, her lips pursed in annoyance. It took a moment for her to read the tiny handwriting and comprehend the convoluted diagram. When at last it did click she chuckled, mirthlessly, and turned back to the vanity mirror. "It'll never work, honey," she'd said, her eyes averting the gaze of her son's. "Don't wish for impossible things."

Phineas peered curiously at Ferb, and he wondered if his mask of tranquil neutrality had slipped as he'd unwillingly recalled his lowest moment. But there was no way to recount the story in a meaningful way – that was what the song was for. "I think it would have been better if they'd stayed in love," he settled on. "But what's done is done." He picked up his guitar and, with a slight nod in Phineas' direction, turned back to his music stand.

No cacophony of laughter or patter of footsteps followed his action, so Ferb took the opportunity to refocus himself. He closed his eyes and with a deep breath played the song again from the beginning. For the first time that evening he deftly maneuvered around the trickiest chords and managed to play something that sounded more like a melody than a mistake.

Before the final notes could finish reverberating in the air, however, Phineas was behind him, stabbing a long bony finger into the note-scribbled pages. "Hold up, what's all that?" he demanded.

"It's my song," Ferb said, pushing Phineas' arm away.

"That's amazing!" the redhead exclaimed, pulling on the back of the chair until the front legs tipped up into the air. Ferb snatched the guitar just before it tumbled out of his lap and leaned forward so the chair landed with a hard thump. He turned to glare at Phineas, but he'd already exiled himself to the bed, smiling sheepishly. He bounced up and down with nervous energy, obliviously pulling out the tucked-away bedspread. "What's your song about?" he asked.

"It's not about anything," Ferb snapped. "I haven't written the lyrics yet."

"Really?" Phineas stared at him wide-eyed. "It sounds just like summer to me."

Ferb blinked. The song didn't sound anything like summer.

But the red haired boy was already lost in thought, chin on his fist and brow furrowed in perfect imitation of _The Thinker_. With his other hand he started snapping his fingers absently. "Play it again, Ferb?" he asked.

Ferb hesitated. On the one hand, playing the song again was exactly what he'd planned to do, long before Phineas had intruded on his quiet evening. On the other hand, he was reluctant to share any more of his private thoughts or works with this strange red-headed boy he'd only met an hour ago. But Phineas looked so eager to join in, and he'd seemed genuinely sorry about the fight with the blueprints.

Ferb shrugged and flipped the pages back to the beginning. Phineas snapped his fingers in time as Ferb started picking his way through the chords. "That's it!" Phineas shouted, jumping up on the bed, and to Ferb's surprise he suddenly burst into song.

_Tell me whatcha wanna do today_

_All we need is a place to start_

_If we've got heart, we'll make it_

_'Cuz we're not messin' around._

_Yes we can dream it, do it, build it, make it,_

_I know we can really take it_

_To the limit, before the sun goes down!_

At the end of the bar Ferb put down the pick and stared at Phineas. To be perfectly honest he was absolutely shocked, and more than a little impressed. He'd never have imagined the fidgety boy in front of him would have the creativity or skill to make up lyrics on the spot like that.

He narrowed his eyes with suspicion, trying to bore his way through Phineas' silly grin to whatever was actually inside. Probably the words were just adapted lyrics from some stupid American pop song that Ferb hadn't heard yet. The alternative – that Phineas might be the kind of intelligent, creative person that Ferb had longed to meet and befriend – couldn't possibly be anything more than wishful thinking.

Phineas looked down at the still boy with one eyebrow raised. "Why'd you stop?"

Ferb ignored the question. "What are those words even supposed to mean?" he demanded haughtily, but he couldn't muster the venom from before.

"Oh I don't know," Phineas mumbled, sitting down cross-legged on the bed and grabbing his toes. "Those blueprints of yours just got me thinking about all the cool stuff I'd like to build next summer."

Ferb blinked and tilted his head to the side slightly.

"Like... a giant robot dog. Or a portal to Mars. Or a roller coaster, right in your backyard!" He grinned and started ticking things off on his fingers. "A rodeo with mechanical bulls. An anti-gravity machine. A monster truck stadium. Oh, and a time machine, of course!"

"Of course," Ferb said drily. He turned his back to the bed and adjusted the loose sheets of note paper distractedly. "Aren't those things all impossible?"

Phineas shrugged his skinny shoulders. "Maybe. We could still try, though, right?"

Ferb paused, almost imperceptibly, in his busywork. "What do you mean, 'we'?"

In a flash Phineas was standing in front of Ferb, the music stand pushed to the side. He grabbed his shoulders and thrust his face in way closer to Ferb's than the green-haired boy was comfortable with. "I mean, with my planning and your mechanical skills, we could build anything! I'll invite you over to my house every day next summer and we'll build _everything_!" Phineas' babbling became less and less coherent as he continued, so fast he was becoming breathless. "I'm sorry I made fun of your blueprints earlier – I hadn't realized their full _potential_. It'll be just like the song says, right? _If we have heart, we'll make it. _Don't we have heart?!"

For a moment Ferb just sat there, stunned into silence. Then he burst into loud, raucous laughter that made him wheeze and gasp for breath. Phineas joined in too, falling on the bed and clutching his stomach. For minutes all the pair could do was laugh and laugh, and even when they settled down into short chuckles and gasps they both just sat there, saying nothing.

Ferb looked at Phineas, lying on the bed with his legs dangling off the edge, still grinning and staring off into space. It felt strange to be laughing until he was out of breath with someone he'd so recently tried to punch – even if it was only half-hearted. And his ideas all sounded crazy, like something out of a _Space Adventure _movie. Mechanical bulls? Time machines? Even the saner ones would be impossible to pull off. How were two kids ever going to be able to build a roller coaster, let alone in the space of a suburban backyard? But something about the skinny redhead tickled Ferb's fancy. Quick to anger and quick to laugh, with a talent for impossible schemes and impromptu lyrics... Whatever a summer with Phineas would be like, it was sure to be a heck of a lot more fun than boarding school in England.

Phineas caught Ferb's eye and propped himself up on one elbow. "So how about it, Ferbooch?" he asked. "You in?"

Ferb nodded, and smiled.

Lawrence was almost dizzy with giddiness. He couldn't believe how well the date had gone. As the car pulled into the driveway, though, he began to worry. Should he kiss her again? Or would that imply he was only interested in her looks? Because he was certain he was deeply in love with all of her – her feisty personality, her eclectic sense of fashion, her penchant for history puns. Silently, shyly, they climbed out of the car and walked up the path to the house. Lawrence paused on the doorstep and took Linda's hands in his, determined to end the night on a high note.

Before he could say anything, however, the door suddenly slammed open. Candace stood there, breathing heavily, her hair in a messy disarray. "Mom! Mom! You have to come see what Phineas and Ferg are doing!"

"Actually it's pronounced Ferb -" Lawrence tried to correct her.

"Oh whatever! C'mon Mom, c'mon c'mon c'mon!" She grabbed Linda's hand and before either of the adults could react she was pulling her up the stairs two at a time. Lawrence just caught a glance of Mrs. McPherson dozing in front of some cheesy black and white movie on TV before he hurried to catch up to the two Flynns.

"There!" Candace said, flinging open the door to Ferb's room proudly. "Look what they've done!"

Linda gasped. The two boys were jumping up and down on the bed, singing at the top of their lungs, while around them lay nearly all of Ferb's toys arranged in various movie scenes or battle regiments. His blueprints were strewn all over the floor and next to them were dozens of sheets of paper drawn and written on with whatever was handy – pencils, markers, crayons. Ferb's guitar leaned precariously against his chair next to the bed, vibrating dangerously with each impact.

"Phineas!" Linda said angrily, hands on her hips. The red headed boy stopped jumping immediately, climbing off the bed and walking over to the doorway. Ferb followed him, standing almost protectively nearby, and the two looked up at their parents somewhat sheepishly. "Did you make this mess?" Linda demanded, but before she could go any farther, Lawrence gently nudged her shoulder.

"I think it's alright," he whispered. "I think they're just getting to know each other." Linda blushed slightly and smiled.

"If it looks okay to you..."

"Never been better," he said happily. Lawrence squatted down and pulled his son into a hug. Ferb was smiling broadly for the first time in months. "What did you do today?" he asked.

Ferb grabbed Phineas' hand. "I made a friend," he whispered.


End file.
